Sisyphus Under Stone
by PinkFreud
Summary: They've been unfairly condemned...all they have is each other, and sleepless nights. Oneshot, sad, angsty MSR.


**Title: Sisyphus Under Stone**

**Rating:** T

**Summary: **They've been unfairly condemned, all they have is each other now...and sleepless, endless nights.

**Disclaimer:** Nope. Don't own anything.

**Author's Note: **This is my sad, angsty little oneshot. I hope you like it.

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Insomniac nights are more like days with extra hours, except that those hours carry nothing but darkness. Insomniac nights are the loneliest times, but also the times for meditation and introspection; for making wishes and making plans that you'll never, ever go through with.

He has his share of insomniac nights; most nights are that way to him, actually. He'll lie on the couch awhile and stare at the ceiling like the universe is somehow living within the chipped paint. And sometimes he'll fall into memories, feel them repeat and replay in full vivid color. And sometimes he'll think about time travel and if it is possible, and all resulting paradoxes.

And sometimes he'll stare out the window and listen to cars, to wheels rushing by against the street, of the rubber of tires kissing the asphalt with a vicious passion. He wonders where they are going, and if it is a nice place.

He's this lonely thing; nobody sees. And even if they could they'd only turn away again. He writes letters sometimes. Letters that nobody will ever read, and he's not even sure if it's really him that's writing them, or if it's some shadow extension of himself, because everything blurs now.

There are ghosts dancing in the room. He hears a voice talking and jumps a mile; then he realizes it was his own voice; he never realized that he spoke so quietly, so sadly. His head is in his hands, he is beyond tired, yet somehow more alert than ever. And he's pacing the room like a caged animal, wearing holes in the floor. He turns on the TV, then switches it off and walks over to the bookcase and pulls down some stupid novel he hasn't read since college, and the words are still trite and meaningless.

He wonders if she is awake.

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His sleeping problems may be contagious, because she's caught them too. Her whole body is twitchy and defies rest with a near fury. She feels like her blood is itching. She can't sleep if he doesn't sleep. It's odd, but that's what it has become. She leaves her place, keys in her hand shining in light from streetlamps as she gets into her car. The radio is turned on, then off.

She doesn't even bother to knock on his door. She just uses her key and walks right in. He looks up from where he's been sitting on the couch with his head in his hands. He looks like he's been condemned to push a boulder up a hill for all eternity, only to have it slip once he nears the top, and roll back down. Always seeking and never, ever finding the end; never finding rest.

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Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to do just that; roll that rock up a steep hill and finally get it to the top when it, and he, fall backward, only to have to begin again. It's a hideous punishment, a horrid sentence, one that breeds so much frustration and anger it's almost unthinkable how anyone could live like that and not go completely mad.

She's heard another version of the story, though, one that she remembers an English professor at college tell the class. He told about the philosopher Albert Camus who argued that, in a way, Sisyphus beat the god's punishment, every time he chose to get back up again. It was his choice; there was an in-between moment where Sisyphus could just lie there, crushed beneath stone and choose to never move again...and yet he does, and he climbs to his feet and keeps pushing, though he is doomed to fail forever, over and over again. It is the greatest kind of bravery, to continue on, even when there is no hope, just an eternity of falling back beneath the burden you carry.

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She's got her arms around him now; her pretty fingers digging into his shoulders and leaving little half-moon marks that she's sorry for, even though they'll fade away quickly. He's made her as crazy as he is, but even so she doesn't want it any other way. And this is them, silhoutted against the darkness, in between night and morning, between life and death, just clinging to each other like all hell has conspired to tear them apart and they've sworn they won't ever be moved.

He dosen't know if he's crying or laughing or a little bit of both; the hysterical place between sadness and exhausted giddiness. And she's just got her arms around him, because there's no place else for her to be except here. This is it, now. She's a part of it. They're one of those tragic mythological couples; like in those stories people read, thinking, ''I wish I could have a love that deep''. But they're so, so stupid to want that because they have no idea, _no idea_ how much it hurts to be so deeply connected to another, so in love that you could die from it.

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Insomniac Friday nights bleed into muddy Saturday mornings. Finally they're asleep, wrapped around each other, exhausted from living this life that offers no peace to either of them. No peace except each other, and the few moments when they can just fall asleep, hypnotised by each other's breathing. It's an unfair punishment the gods have laid upon them both, to be so in love.


End file.
